Noisy Typer Adds the Sound of a Manual Typewriter to Your Laptop (video)

Artist and designer Theo Watson has developed a new app that fixes the one least annoying feature of a laptop: it's not noisy enough. Specifically, he's written a free app that makes typing on your laptop sound like an old time typewriter.

This only works on OSX at the moment, and unfortunately there's no sign that the developer plans to develop a version of the app for Windows. On the other hand that is probably a good thing. These sound effects are annoying enough that they are liable to inspire a lynch mob.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

I like to carry around a full-sized USB keyboard at conferences and I get dirty looks because it is not as quiet as the average laptop. It's silly, I know, but that's what people are doing.

The 37-year-old writer represented a bygone era, the last typewriter-user in a special room devoted to typists.

"In the event that there are no desks available, laptop users must make room for typists," read a sign posted in the "Typing Room" for years.

When Ferrante returned to the Writers Room in April after an eight-month break, the sign was gone and his noisy typewriter was no longer welcome.

"I was told I was the unintended beneficiary of a policy to placate the elderly members who have all since died off," said Ferrante, a Manhattan native who's writing children's books. "They offered me a choice to switch to a laptop or refund my money, which to me is no choice at all."

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."